SerpApi.Org
The Iranian regime is escalating gruesome assassination threats against Donald Trump that intelligence veterans warn should be taken seriously.
This month, billboards in central Tehran that the regime often uses to send pointed messages to the world have featured multiple images of Trump – and his family – in coffins as the US ramps up its bombing campaign. Iranian state media also published a video titled “Where to kill Trump” that purports to show the US President’s travel routes around Florida.
Meanwhile, regime loyalists attending the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assassinated by the US and Israel in the first act of the war on 28 February, carried banners with the message “Kill Trump”. The new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed that his father’s killers would not “die peacefully in their beds”.
Trump appears to have taken the threats seriously. “[Iran] had leaders, they’re gone… And you know what? I may be gone too. Because I’m their number one target,” he said at the Nato summit in Turkey this month. “I’ve left instructions [that] if anything happens to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before.”
Iran is accused of several previous plots against Trump. His team reported warnings from US intelligence over Iranian assassination attempts during his re-election campaign in 2024, shortly after he was shot at during a rally in Pennsylvania, which was not connected to Iran.
Also in 2024, the US government brought charges against an Afghan national for allegedly participating in a plot to kill him. This month, Israeli intelligence claimed to have evidence of a new plot, although Trump dismissed it as “nothing”.
US intelligence veterans specialising in Iran suggested Tehran’s threats were sincere but questioned its ability to fulfil them.
Steven Ward, a former CIA intelligence officer and author of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence, said the plots date back to Trump’s assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Solemani in 2020 but Tehran had not yet shown the ability to carry out such high-profile assassinations on US soil.
“The threat should be taken seriously, but Iran has not shown great skill or dedication in backing up such threats,” he told The i Paper.
Many of their plots “were foiled because of their poor execution”, he added, citing attempts against the lives of the Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir, in 2011, and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton in 2022.
Ken Katzman, another former CIA official with a focus on Iran, now at the Soufan Center think-tank in Washington DC, agreed the threats were serious but suggested Iran was “toying” with assassination plans rather than fully committing to them.
“I think it’s a tall order for Iran to implement any kind of plot like that. Any confederate of Iran is either arrested or under heavy scrutiny,” he said, adding: “I don’t see evidence of a deliberate, government-wide effort here.”
Analysts have also raised questions about Israeli claims regarding Iranian plots.
Former US diplomat James Rubin suggested the most recent leak was “intended more to influence than inform” on his podcast with Christiane Amanpour – noting the desire of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to maintain maximum pressure on Iran and opposition to a US deal with the regime.
Rubin further noted a “mixed record” of Israeli intelligence on Iran, such as its pre-war assessment that the regime could be swiftly toppled.
The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and other Iranian officials by Trump’s government has fuelled widespread demands for revenge inside Iran – from hardline religious clerics to members of the public attending the funeral of the former Supreme Leader.
But some analysts believe the escalating threats may be serving the more pragmatic purpose of trying to establish some deterrence as the US launches nightly waves of attacks across Iran, with Trump threatening to target nuclear sites. Iran has retaliated against US bases and allies in the Gulf.
Sina Toossi, an Iran specialist at the Center for International Policy think-tank in Washington DC, said there was “enormous political pressure inside Iran for retaliation” following the US assassinations.
But after carrying out a string of political assassination in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s, the regime has become more cautious in recent years, the analyst said.
“That makes it difficult to assess both its current operational capability and – just as importantly – whether the leadership believes the strategic costs would outweigh any potential benefits,” he added.
“My sense is that the immediate purpose of this messaging is deterrence and psychological pressure. Tehran wants American decision-makers to believe there are personal consequences for continuing the war. Publicising Trump’s travel routes or circulating threatening imagery raises the perceived costs of further escalation even if there is no imminent operational plan behind it.”
Katzman believes that Iran is likely to be aware that the potential costs of a fully committed attempt to kill Trump are too high. “The Iranians are not necessarily suicidal. Assassinating a sitting president? That will get you invaded and that will get you overthrown for sure.”
Even the threats are likely to backfire, in the face of a US administration that is increasingly hawkish in its approach to Iran and the conflict, Katzman said.
“They have already got Trump very animated over, in his view, going back on the Memorandum of Understanding, and this certainly adds to that,” he said. “This pushes [the Americans] in the direction of escalation.”
